Nepal proposes 'wish-list' for Oli's India visit

Kathmandu, Feb 12: Ahead of Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s upcoming visit to India, Kathmandu has filised a comprehensive wishlist it wants New Delhi to fulfil. Projects related to infrastructure and hydel development and power transmission top Oli’s agenda for the six-day visit commencing February 19, officials here said. The wishlist for Oli’s visit — his first foreign tour since assuming office in October last — includes filisation of two hydro-power projects of a total 750 MW capacity that have been on the table for quite some time now. The two projects together would cost about $1 billion. Nepal is estimated to have the potential to generate 42,000 MW of hydropower but today produces 800 MW — far less than the domestic demand of 1,400 MW. The two power projects were among agenda-points that Nepal’s Fince Minister Bishnu Poudel had proposed to his Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley and Indian Exterl Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during a visit to New Delhi earlier this month. India has already promised $2 billion in aid during Prime Minister rendra Modi’s visit to Nepal in August 2014. Another $1 billion in assistance was pledged by India in June 2015 at the Intertiol Conference on Nepal’s Reconstruction following the April 2015 earthquake. Out of the $1 billion, $250 million is aid and the remaining $750 million is soft loan to carry out various post-quake reconstruction works. The other major proposals on Oli’s wishlist are completion within five years of the India-assisted Hulaki Road (postal road) project in Nepal’s southern Terai area; laying of cross-border power transmission lines and developing a state-of-art hospital in Kathmandu. (IANS)

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